The Wall Street Journal - 26.11.2019

(Ann) #1

© 2019 Dow Jones & Company. All Rights Reserved. ** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Tuesday, November 26, 2019 |B


MEDIA: SUPER BOWL AD SLOTS SELL OUT MONTHS AHEAD B


BUSINESS&FINANCE


BUSINESS
GE picks outsider
from Maersk
as its new
finance chief.B

MARKETS
Stocks start
to diverge
after months of
trading together.B

LUCAS JACKSON/REUTERS

PARIS—Tiffany& Co.’s un-
derperforming operations are
about to get an overhaul from
one of the world’s most exact-
ing executives, French billion-
aire Bernard Arnault.
With LVMH Moët Hen-
nessy Louis Vuitton SA’s
$16.2 billion purchase of Tif-
fany, announced Monday, Mr.
Arnault plans to pour market-
ing resources into the high
end of Tiffany’s jewelry line,
focusing attention on its high-
carat diamond necklaces
rather than less expensive sil-
ver jewelry. He also wants to
launch new product lines and
improve the performance of
Tiffany’s far-flung network of
321 boutiques in more than 20
countries.
The chief executive is ready-
ing a playbook that he has used
to build some of the world’s
most successful luxury brands
at LVMH, now one of Europe’s
most valuable companies. His
task is to reinvigorate a storied
brand that has been solidly
profitable but whose sales have
stagnated in recent years.
Comparable sales at Tiffany
have declined for two straight
quarters because of a drop in
tourist spending in the U.S.
LVMH is paying all cash for
Tiffany’s shares and will fi-
nance the deal by issuing
bonds. Executives expect it to
close in the middle of next
year following antitrust ap-
proval by the U.S., the Euro-
pean Union and others.
Mr. Arnault’s strategy calls
for labels to benefit from
LVMH’s deep pockets, some-
times for years, to make nec-
essary investments. Mr. Ar-
nault said the purchase of the
high-end jeweler Bulgari in
2011 offered a model for the
Tiffany buy, requiring major
investments in marketing,
boutique design and communi-
cations. Eight years later, the
brand’s revenue has nearly
doubled and its profit has in-
creased fivefold.
Because those investments
take years to bear fruit, Tif-
fany is better off inside LVMH,
away from the glare of inves-
tors scrutinizing the com-
pany’s results, Mr. Arnault
said. LVMH owns 75 brands,
including luxury giants such as
Louis Vuitton and Dior, but
doesn’t disclose the perfor-
mance of individual labels.
“We will plan long-term,”
Mr. Arnault said in an interview.
“Often with American brands
traded on the stock market, the
Please turn to page B

BYMATTHEWDALTON

LVMH


Chief Aims


High With


His Wager


On Tiffany


display screen behind the 17-
inch panel thatTeslaInc. intro-
duced in 2012 on the Model S
sedan.
“The experience that our
customers are familiar with on
their laptop or cellphone—that
rich experience—has really

moved into the vehicle,” said
Gary Jablonski, chief engineer
of connected car technology at
Ford.
Others such asFiat Chrysler
AutomobilesNV,Toyota Motor
Corp.’s Lexus division andBMW
AG have rolled out models re-

cently with display screens mea-
suring 12 inches diagonally or
more, larger than the screen on
the most popular iPad, which
measures 10.2 inches.
The newest Ram trucks from
Fiat Chrysler, for example, have
a 12-inch touch screen display.

SubaruCorp. recently intro-
duced a new Outback wagon
and Impreza sedan with 11.6-
inch displays, a size available on
all but the base models.
The number of vehicles built
in North America with display
screens measuring 7 inches or
more has grown by nearly 75%
in the past five years, to 10.
million from 6.3 million, ac-
cording to data and analytics
firm IHS Markit. The average
size of the screen also has in-
creased, to 7.3 inches from 6.
inches, during that period, the
firm’s data show.
“The trend we see in the in-
dustry is bigger is better,” said
Georges Massing, an executive
atDaimlerAG’s Mercedes-Benz
division who leads its digital ve-
hicle technologies efforts.
Mercedes’s newest multime-
dia system, the MBUX, com-
bines a large touch screen,
measuring up to 12.3 inches on
some models, with a similar-
sized display for gauges that
spans roughly half the dash-
Please turn to page B

When it comes to the media
display in your car, auto makers
are betting big.
Car companies are introduc-
ing bigger screens in their new-
est models. Executives say the
larger displays are needed as
the systems that show naviga-
tional tools, music options and
the like become more sophisti-
cated, and consumers—espe-
cially younger ones—want to
bring more of their digital lives
into the car.
The increased size and func-
tionality, however, have raised
questions about whether out-
size displays help or hinder ef-
forts to curb distracted driving.
Last week, at the Los Ange-
les Auto Show,Ford MotorCo.
was the latest auto maker to
debut a mammoth display: a
15.5-inch touch screen that will
be in the company’s new all-
electric Mustang Mach-E SUV
when it goes on sale late next
year. At that size, it will be the
industry’s second largest in-car

BYBENFOLDY

Car Makers Roll Out Larger Display Screens


Byton, a Chinese electric-vehicle startup, plans to introduce its first new vehicle, the M-Byte, next year in China with a 48-inch display, and to bring it to the U.S. in 2021.

BYTON


good name in court.”
An attorney for Mr. Purdy
called the charges against his
client false and misguided.
According to the indict-
ment, the executives lied to
Outcome’s pharmaceutical
company clients, falsely in-
flated data, caused the com-
pany to charge for more ads
than it could deliver and in-
flated revenue figures.
The indictment offers new
details alleging that the former
executives fielded ethics com-
plaints early in 2017 as they
were raising money from in-
vestors.
It says Ms. Agarwal, 34,
sent Mr. Shah an audio mes-
sage saying that a recently
hired operating chief, Sameer
Kazi, had claimed “that we are
operating an unethical busi-
ness” and that Outcome’s then-
executive in charge of sales
and analytics, Ashik Desai, was
falsifying data.
In her message, Ms. Agar-
wal said Mr. Kazi received
Please turn to page B

fraud and two counts of bank
fraud. Mr. Shah, 33 years old,
also faces two counts of money
laundering and Mr. Purdy, 30,
faces one count of making a
false statement to a bank. On
the most serious charges, the
three each face a maximum
prison sentence of 30 years if
convicted.
The Securities and Ex-
change Commission on Mon-
day also sued the three former
executives, alleging they com-
mitted civil securities fraud.
A lawyer for Mr. Shah said
his client denies the charges
brought by the Justice Depart-
ment and SEC and “looks for-
ward to his day in court and
the opportunity to clear his
name.”
Ms. Agarwal’s attorney said
her client denies prosecutors’
allegations. “Shradha never
committed fraud and never
participated in any conspiracy.
To the contrary, Shradha was
committed to transparency and
integrity at Outcome Health.
She will fight to protect her

Federal prosecutors charged
former executives ofOutcome
Healthwith allegedly falsify-
ing data in a nearly $1 billion
scheme to defraud the com-
pany’s clients and investors,
including Goldman Sachs
Group Inc.,AlphabetInc. and
an investment firm founded by
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker.
The criminal indictments of
the startup’s former chief exec-
utive, Rishi Shah, as well as ex-
president Shradha Agarwal
and previous finance chief
Brad Purdy, conclude a two-
year investigation by the Jus-
tice Department. The case was
sparked by a 2017 Wall Street
Journal report that the com-
pany—which displays pharma-
ceutical ads in doctors’ of-
fices—had misled some
customers with inflated data
and fake reports.
In the indictment unsealed
Monday, the three executives
were each charged with multi-
ple counts of mail and wire

BYROLFEWINKLER

Outcome Health’s Ex-Leaders


Charged With $1 Billion Fraud


INSIDE


S&P3133.64À0.75% S&P FINÀ0.65% S&P ITÀ1.43% DJ TRANSÀ1.51% WSJ $ IDXÀ0.02% LIBOR 3M 1.919 NIKKEI (Midday)23431.74À0.60% See more at WSJ.com/Markets

On Monday, Charles Schwab
said it agreed to buy smaller
rival TD Ameritrade in a stock-
swap transaction valued at
about $26 billion.
Registered investment ad-
visers, or RIAs, rely on broker-
ages including Schwab, TD
Ameritrade and Fidelity In-
vestments to execute trades,
hold clients’ assets and per-
form related services such as
record-keeping, a business
known as custody.
The $26 billion merger
would create a behemoth in
that world. A combined
Schwab-TD Ameritrade would

have nearly $2.1 trillion of ad-
visers’ assets in custody, or
around 51% of the market, ac-
cording to estimates by Cerulli
Associates.
TheNo.2playerinthe
space, Fidelity Investments,
has about $932 billion in RIA
assets, or less than a quarter
of the market, Cerulli esti-
mates.
That scale helped drive the
sharp gains in the shares of
both Schwab and TD Ameri-
trade last week, but it has also
sparked worries about deterio-
rating service and less choice
for advisers.

“The adviser community is
not particularly upbeat about
this news,” said Michael Kit-
ces, a partner and the director
of wealth management at Pin-
nacle Advisory Group, which
manages about $2 billion for
its clients. “There’s not a lot of
upside that’s visible to them.”
On a Monday conference
call with analysts, Schwab
President and Chief Executive
Walt Bettinger said: “We’re
very confident that...the com-
bined organization will remain
the premier custodian for in-
dependent investment advis-
ers. And I think that as the

dust settles, independent in-
vestment advisers will agree
with that assessment.”
A TD Ameritrade spokes-
woman referred requests for
comment to Schwab, which re-
ferred a reporter to execu-
tives’ comments on the confer-
ence call.
Schwab is currently the big-
gest RIA custodian, with
around $1.5 trillion in assets
and more than 7,500 financial
advisers. Schwab helped the
financial-adviser industry gain
momentum in the 1990s by
creating the Schwab Advisor
Please turn to page B

Wall Street has roared its
approval forCharles Schwab
Corp.’s plan to buyTD Ameri-
trade HoldingCorp., but the
proposed deal isn’t sitting well
with one key group: the finan-
cial advisers who park their
clients’ money with the big
online brokerages.

BYALEXANDEROSIPOVICH

Schwab-TD Deal Upsets Big Clients


Plan sparks fear that
services will decline
after large brokerages
complete merger

merits of the deal and after
the Woonsocket, R.I., company
in February issued a downbeat
earnings projection for the
year due to challenges in its
pharmacy-benefits and long-
term-care businesses.
The shares went on to re-
bound sharply as CVS reported
a string of unexpectedly strong
financial results, and research
analysts have taken a more fa-
vorable view.
Revenue in the third quarter
rose to $64.8 billion, CVS said
earlier this month, exceeding
analyst expectations. Its busi-
ness that offers pharmacy-ben-
efit services to employers and
others had revenue of $36 bil-
lion in the quarter, up about
6% from a year earlier. Its re-
tail business, filling prescrip-
tions and selling a range of
merchandise, recorded a reve-
nue increase of 3% to $21.5 bil-
lion.
Shares of CVS rival Wal-
greens Boots Alliance Inc. have
slumped about 25% in the past
year as revenue from prescrip-
tion-drug sales slows and com-
Please turn to page B

Activist investorStarboard
ValueLP has taken a stake in
CVS HealthCorp. and held
talks with the drugstore-and-
insurance giant’s management,
according to people familiar
with the matter.
The stake appears to be rel-
atively small, and the people
said the talks, held recently,
are amicable. How much Star-
board currently owns and what
it has discussed with the com-
pany couldn’t be learned. But
Starboard is one of the top ac-
tivist investment firms and its
presence in a stock usually
causes a company to sit up and
take notice.
CVS shares have been on a
roller-coaster ride since the
company acquired health in-
surer Aetna Inc. for nearly $
billion almost a year ago. The
deal married CVS’s sprawling
drugstore network and phar-
macy-benefit manager with
one of the nation’s largest
health insurers.
The stock fell sharply amid
early skepticism about the

BYCORRIEDRIEBUSCH

Activist Investor Buys


Stake in CVS Health


Largest displays available in current and pending U.S. cars.

BytonM-Byte*

TeslaModelS,ModelX

FordMustangMach-E*

TeslaModel

LexusRX

Mercedes-BenzGLS,GLE

BMWX5,X6,

48.0 inches

17.

15.

15.

12.

12.

12.

Number of vehicles made in
North America with center
displays larger than 7 inches
12 million vehicles

0

2

4

6

8

10

’152014 ’16 ’17 ’18 ’

Largedisplayscreensincarsarebecomingmorecommon.

*Vehicle is not yet for sale
Source: IHS Markit
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